“If this isn’t a smoking gun on Benghazi, at least on the controversy over the talking points that blamed a YouTube video rather than the terrorists who plotted and then conducted the attack, then it’s not clear what would qualify. Judicial Watch forced the release of additional White House e-mails relating to the evolution of the talking points and finds a rather bald-faced admission of Obama administration interests in Susan Rice’s television appearances the following Sunday. The YouTube story was designed to distract from “policy failures,” according to Barack Obama’s aide Ben Rhodes.” Newly-released WH email shows Rice talking points on Benghazi politically motivated

Remember, the film maker went to PRISON. “I didn’t know how right I was when I wrote on September 29, 2012 “Benghazi Worse then Watergate.” With the release of new emails it is spectacularly worse — so bad in fact that it has made a full investigation with an impeachment trial necessary for the protection of our republic. [Snip] Anyone who now considers Benghazi a “fake scandal” is a either a complete liar or a moron. This new release of emails thanks to Judicial Watch is literally a call to arms. We will now see if there is even a figment of honesty in our mainstream media and if our elected representatives are to be trusted in any way. It is our duty as citizens to put as pressure on those representatives as possible to carry through this investigation to its natural conclusion — impeachment.” New Benghazi Emails Mean Obama Impeachment Trial Must Be Launched

Emphasis mine. “Of course, the White House has stonewalled investigators for many months who thought there was a coordinated White House plan to lie to the American people regarding the Benghazi attack to reinforce the campaign narrative that Al Qaeda had been decimated. Instead of honestly depicting the attack on Benghazi as a terror attack, the White House came up with a story that it was an unplanned attack prompted by a video that barely anyone had ever seen. When the video story was shown to be false, I speculated that Ben Rhodes, Obama’s speechwriter turned into Deputy National Security Adviser, likely played a key role in trying to convey a lie. He had a history of creating false narratives, as covered in “Ben Rhodes: Obama’s Fixer Behind the Benghazi Cover-up”. [Snip] For years I have wondered why Rhodes had achieved such influence with Obama-given a clear lack of qualification to serve any role in the upper reaches of government. Now we know it is not sycophancy alone that worked for him. Nor is it just the fact that his brother heads CBS News (which recently parted company with Sharyl Attkisson following her persistent investigative reporting on Benghazi). It goes beyond those factors: he will do his boss’s bidding, hiding information, manipulating the facts, distract people: the truth and the American people be damned. Undoubtedly he shared Hillary Clinton’s view: what difference, at this point, does it make?” Ben Rhodes at center of plan to whitewash White House on Benghazi

“Rhodes is probably merely the tip of the iceberg. We still haven’t had the most basic questions about Benghazi answered, such as where was Obama that night? But if Obama responds to the news about Rhodes’ emails at all, it will probably be to do one or all of these things: deny he knew a thing about it, say Rhodes was merely instructing people to say what the administration actually thought was the truth, and/or ask what difference does it make now, anyway?” Is this finally the Benghazi smoking gun?

Where were Barack and Hillary? “The other striking fact about the emails is the complete absence of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Maybe someone was keeping them informed, but they are never mentioned in the emails (except when someone prepares a statement to be issued under their names). During the crucial hours, they are never referred to. There is no suggestion that they are playing a part; that they are in the loop; that they are making decisions; or that they are, in any way, important players. Maybe there are more emails, not yet disclosed, that would reflect their roles. Or maybe they really were ciphers–seat warmers with no concerns beyond the political, not expected to do anything in an hour of crisis.” THE BENGHAZI SCANDAL IN ONE EMAIL

It’s all they’ve got, and I hate that so many women will buy into this crap, and it is crap. “More broadly, Democrats use the “war on women” construct to argue for unlimited abortion, one of the more divisive social issues of the day. And the Post notes they possess an advantage on the issue of gay marriage, which, along with the Obama administration’s insistence on taxpayer funded birth control, has become a centerpiece of the left’s efforts to punish thought-outliers and erode religious liberty. If the Democrats are going to double down on their perceived strengths for the midterms, that will likely mean firing many more shots in the culture war. And with the party prepared to anoint Hillary Clinton two years later, don’t expect it to let up any time soon.” Democrats and the Forever (Culture) War

“The Democrats are not without assets heading into November. Their dominance on social issues as they beat the drums for their faux “war on women” campaign against the GOP is something they hope to exploit. Their embrace of a populist message on income inequality may be economic snake oil but it also has traction with much of the public. But, as the Postpoints out, Obama’s popularity is now roughly comparable to that of George W. Bush at the same point in his presidency. That is a depressing reminder for Democrats who have been seeking a reason to believe that they would somehow beat the odds and history and not suffer the usual walloping that the party in power gets during the midterm election of a second-term presidency. Despite the early April optimism about the Democrats that the administration’s media cheerleaders have been feeding the public, the outlook remains grim for a president sinking inevitably into lame duck irrelevance.” Sinking Poll Results Debunk Dem Optimism

More On the Stories from Yesterday

“Tuesday’s World News ignored ABC’s own poll showing President Obama’s lowest approval rating of his presidency. ABC gave a scant 18 seconds to the numbers on Good Morning America earlier that day. [Snip] Instead of the poll numbers, however, the World News found two minutes for an update in Italy’s trial of Amanda Knox, which NBC and CBS didn’t think newsworthy. ABC also devoted a 50-second news brief to the announcement of the cast members in new Star Wars movie. As the MRC reported, ABC wasn’t so generous to President Bush when he hit an approval low in 2006. After all the networks reported his low 34 percent approval rating in a CBS poll, the World News a week later ignored an ABC poll showing his approval seven points higher at 41 percent.” ABC Ignores Own Poll Numbers Showing Obama’s Lowest Approval Rating

Spinning. “NBC might put a nice spin on this poll, but it’s not good news, and it’s really not that much betternews either. First, the improvements aren’t really all that significant. Even on job approval, Obama’s still 44/50, which is underwater outside of the MOE. Neither of the numbers has moved outside the MOE since early October, when Obama was at 47/48. His approval numbers since have ranged from 41-44, and disapproval from 50-54. This change is statistical noise, especially given the very clear triggering event in the ObamaCare launch. The same is true of his personal favorability. It’s 44/41 now, but it was 41/44 in March, 42/44 in January, 42/46 in December, and 41/45 in late October. At the start of ObamaCare, it was 47/41. Again, today’s result is basically statistical noise.” NBC/WSJ poll puts Obama approval at 44%

Amnesty

Why does the Left, and some Republicans as well, hate jobs for those who are already citizens? “With 16 major chains closing or planning on closing stores across America, Staples, Office Depot, Radio Shack, Albertsons, Safeway (Dominick’s in Chicago), Abercrombie and Fitch, Barnes and Noble, J.C. Penney, Toys R Us, Sweetbay Supermarket, Loehmann’s, Quiznos, Sears and Kmart, Ruby Tuesday, Red Lobster, and Ralph’s, more Americans will be unemployed, having to compete for jobs with 12 million potential amnestied illegal aliens and their extended families, while tax revenues that support welfare dependency will decrease. Why must we dilute the composition of our society so much that our votes no longer count and America is changed fundamentally into a hodge-podge of unassimilated ethnic groups who do not care about our country’s future, traditions and history? Does anyone remember Rome’s history?” Amnesty, American Values, and Economic Dependency

Big Government

There’s a reason why the Washington economy is on steroids: Killing the private sector economy one regulation at a time. “On a per-household basis, federal regulatory costs average $14,974, which is more than the typical household spends on just about anything else. When regulatory costs are combined with federal spending, Washington’s share of the economy rises to an eye-popping 31%. There are currently more than 3,000 rules in various stages of implementation at 63 federal agencies; 191 of the rules are “economically significant,” which means that they will impose more than $100 million in annual compliance costs. Nearly 670 of these rules will affect small businesses.” U.S. Regulatory Costs Are World’s No. 10 Economy

Common Core

I have no words. “This weekend on “Fox News Sunday,” anchor Chris Wallace credited his guest, Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, with leading the nation as the “first state to fall out of the Common Core national education standards.” If only it were true. Wallace didn’t do his homework. And presidential aspirant Pence was too busy daydreaming about 2016 to correct him. Reality check: Last week, Pence faced the anger of hundreds of Indiana parents, educators and activists at a public Indiana Business Roundtable meeting to discuss his phony charade. The protesters openly booed Pence’s derision of critics as out-of-staters and elitists. They roared their disapproval when he claimed that his “new” standards were superior and homegrown. Indiana mom Heather Crossin, one of the earliest and strongest grassroots voices against the federalized standards/textbook/testing racket, exposed the truth: ‘The proposed standards are simply a cloned version of the Common Core re-branded.’” GOP’s Common Core Re-brand Hustle

He’s always had thin skin. “Apparently the criticism of his foreign policy is beginning to sting President Obama. But he is not going to convince any skeptics with the tortuous defense of his record that he and his spinmeister, Ben Rhodes, put forth on their Asian trip. “You hit singles, you hit doubles; every once in a while we may be able to hit a home run,” Obama said at a news conference. “But we steadily advance the interests of the American people and our partnership with folks around the world.” [Snip] Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser who no doubt helped formulate the above attack line, chimed in with a line of his own: “If we took all of the actions that our critics have demanded, we’d lose count of the number of military conflicts that America would be engaged in.” Talk about swinging–and missing–at a straw man! (Yes those are the kinds of mixed metaphors that Obama’s baseball analogy elicits.) This is a pretty poor excuse for the drift of the world on Obama’s watch. [Snip] Sorry, Mr. Rhodes: U.S. presidents are judged on how they handle crises. FDR was judged on his record after Pearl Harbor, Truman on his record after the start of the Cold War, JFK on his record in the Cuban Missile Crisis, LBJ on Vietnam, Carter on the Iranian Hostage Crisis and the invasion of Afghanistan, George H.W. Bush on the invasion of Kuwait, George W. Bush on 9/11, and so on. Obama has been judged and found wanting and lame baseball metaphors are not going to save his record from the critical scrutiny it is now rightly receiving.” A Bad Metaphor, But an Even Worse Excuse

“So many are not paying attention the Left’s, and Obama’s, intent. “Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as “liberal,” let alone socialist. Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate “outsider” (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a “breath of fresh air” to Washington. The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded “r” word. But too much is at stake in this election to continue mincing words. A perfect storm of statism is forming, and our economic freedoms are at serious risk.” ‘The Audacity Of Hope’ Or The Omen Of Socialism?

Intentions over outcomes. “Why don’t liberals seem to notice the catastrophic consequences of their policies, and why to they imagine imminent horrors where none exist? If you corner a liberal and point to a disaster that followed upon his policy, at very most he will say–with a tear in the eye and a quivering upper lip– ‘We did the right thing.’” Why Liberals Don’t Care About Consequences

The Middle Class

What I have called out here, is long, but totally worth the read. “The theoretical mechanics of assertions are as arcane as classical physics—and only a Ph.D. economist could reasonably divine their weakness—yet Piketty’s answers to income inequality are remarkably seductive. He proposes an 80 percent tax on incomes over $500,000 or $1 million and an annual levy on wealth of as much as 10 percent. In turn, the revenue raised could finance more redistribution programs, championed by progressive politicians seeking votes, such as state subsidized health care and superfluous government jobs. Without those taxes, Piketty asserts society will become ever more stratified and hard work will become futile. The best and brightest among those not born to great wealth, like characters in a 19th century novel, will conclude that marrying a fortune is a much better life strategy than seeking gainful employment. All this will kill economic growth and make ordinary people poorer and poorer. Piketty argues the ever greater concentration of wealth continued into the 1920s, when disparities between rich and poor reached a peak. It was only the disruptions of two world wars and the Great Depression that destroyed much of the capital concentrated in the hands of the wealthy and permitted the post-World War II prosperity and rise of the middle class. Now, Piketty argues, the forces driving inequality have reemerged. We live in another Great Gatsby era with Wall Street barons earning in the millions while workers toil at Manhattan restaurants for barely more than the minimum wage. Piketty’s model of capitalism is tight and compelling because of what it ignores. [Snip] Nowadays a good deal of the mega incomes are not accruing to the heirs of the Rockefeller and Ford fortunes but falling into the hands of middle class offspring who became entrepreneurs or worked hard to become top corporate managers, stars in the media, financiers, and the like. The founders of Microsoft, Fedex, Facebook, and other recently established mega enterprises were generally not particularly privileged as young adults, but rather they had great insight or ideas and the drive to commercialize them. The huge incomes of many top corporate managers, athletes, and entertainers may be set by arbitrary forces as Piketty asserts. For example, the monopolies granted by Congress and federal agencies to the cable TV providers permit NFL athletes to receive outsized salaries financed in significant measure by unregulated and ever-rising cable subscription fees. And top corporate leaders do set their own pay by controlling the membership and serving on one another’s boards of directors. It’s a fool’s errand to try to solve those kinds of problems by simply taxing high incomes and wealth. Rather, modern economics prescribes that when natural monopolies emerge, such as in the delivery of cable television, it is the responsibility of governments to regulate rates—as they do the electric utilities—to ensure fair incomes to providers and reasonable prices to consumers. And to discipline corporate governance to ensure senior managers do not place their interest above those of shareholders and ordinary workers at large corporations. The extreme positions for and against measured government intervention embraced by politicians too often block such prudent regulation. In the end, it’s a failure of democratic governments to act responsibly, not the shortcomings of capitalism that is failing America’s workers and middle class.” PICKETTY MISSES THE POINT: DEMOCRACY, NOT CAPITALISM, IS FAILING THE MIDDLE CLASS

Millenials

Finally starting to see the light… “Harvard’s poll showed millennials, which the pollsters defined as peopled aged 18 to 29, have lost trust in a variety of different major public institutions including the President, the military, Congress, the Supreme Court, and the federal government as a whole. Of all the institutions tracked by the poll, the President and the military lost the most trust among young Americans with a seven point drop. Overall, the pollsters said the level of trust millennials have in “most American institutions tested in our survey” had dropped below even ‘last year’s historically low numbers.’” Harvard Poll Shows Millennials Have ‘Historically Low’ Levels Of Trust In Government

President Obama

I can only imagine what the mainstream press would be saying if he was a Republican… “It is clear that the Obamas continually abuse the perks of the president’s office at taxpayer expense,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement to Secrets. “And it is particularly interesting that Obama has chosen to take not one but two luxury vacations back-to-back while inveighing against ‘income equality.’ President Obama’s waste of the hard-earned tax dollars of working Americans on unnecessary luxury travel is an abuse of office.’” Obama-Biden vacation tab reaches $40 million — $2.9 million alone for two Obama 2014 golf outings

We’ve got a terrific line up for our annual Christmas program. First up will be the Ignite Barbershop Quartet. Ignite began singing together after a quartet matching party in November 2015. They are all Champion members of Region 21’s Scottsdale Chorus and they will be singing for us!

After lunch, Congressional District 6 congressman, Representative David Schweikart, will talk to us about what’s happening in Washington DC, and provide us with a status of the Tax Bill working its way through the House of Representatives and Senate.

Finally, member Julia Graham will install our new 2018/2019 officers. We look forward to seeing you and be sure to bring a friend or two or three!